Lighting Sequence... will this work?

[sellout007]

I want to try and avoid putting any fans on my tank to keep the temps down so I was thinking about putting my MH on for 3 hour intervals.

The intervals would be...

10:00am -- Actinic turns on

12:00pm - 3:00pm -- MH's turn on

3:01 - 5:00pm -- MH turn off

5:01pm - 8:00pm -- MH turn on.

8:01pm -- MH turn off.

10:00pm - Actinics turn off.


That gives me 6 hours of MH lighting spaced throught the day for my corals and a constant 12 hours of light for viewing and the fish. Hopefully this will help keep the heat down.

 

[jgleach]

Of course it will work....you can do anything you want with your lighting.....

Now, the question is: How will the corals react? I can't answer that for you, but if you try it, I'd like you to post the results in a month or two....it's an interesting experiment.

I'm not sure why you want to avoid fans...noise issues? Here's another lighting alternative that might work for you...but it assumes your tank is large enough for more than 1 MH bulb. This is what I am running on my 180 gal. sps tank.

11am actinics on
noon- left MH on
2pm- center MH on
4pm- right MH on
6pm- left MH off
8pm- center MH off
10 pm-right MH off
11pm- actinics off

This gives me 12 hours of actinics and 10 hours of tank viewing with MH bulbs, yet each MH is only burning for 6 hours. The down side is that all 3 MH bulbs are only on at the same time for 2 hours. viewing the tank when it is not uniformly lit takes some getting used to.....especially when only the first or last bulbs are lit. I started this lighting scheme to attempt to simulate (to some small degree) the movement of the sun across the sky.


Another thought for heat removal is a fan on your sump. I just added a small clip on style house fan from walmart to my 150 gal. softie tank. I clipped the fan to one of the supports in the stand and have it aimed right at an area where the water overflows from one section of the sump to another. This fan seems to cool the tank even better than the one in the canopy that is blowing on the surface of the tank. Nearly all the tanks contents travel over the baffle that the fan is blowing on...and as long as your stand is ventilated (decent sized opening in the back) this may be your answer to cooling....good luck

Jeff

 

[sellout007]

I am trying to avoid fans for a few reasons. Noise & evapoation being the first two in line. I had a larger fan on my last tank pointed at my sump and the evaporation was pretty bad in that tank and it was noisey as heck.

I currently have 2 (250w) DE 14k Phoenix bulbs. But I think I might go batty only seeing half the tank light up! haha Although that does simulate the sun rising and setting pretty darn well!

I havent tried this lighting sequence yet. I currently just have them on for a 6 hour block from 1-7 and so far and I dont *think* my tank is changing that much. I havent really kept up on monitoring the temps as I need to buy a new thermo for the new tank.

One other concern I had was how the ballast and the lights would hold up to the on/off more often.

Thanks for the post Jeff!

 

[jgleach]

sellout007....evaporation is one of the keys to keeping your tank cool when you add as much energy as we are adding with the MH bulbs. Latent heat is the heat energy required to change a substance from one state to another. When water evaporates from your tank, the energy required to change the state of the water comes directly from the water in your tank. If high temperature is an issue, I would encourage as much evaporation as possible.

Jeff

 

[mm949]

you will confuse your corals....best to keep constant cycles

 

[jgleach]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7037276#post7037276 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sellout007
I currently have 2 (250w) DE 14k Phoenix bulbs. But I think I might go batty only seeing half the tank light up! haha Although that does simulate the sun rising and setting pretty darn well!

Batty is a good way to discribe it... ....like I said, it does take some getting used to. You could try to arrange the lighting so that both are on when you're in the room most.....if it's your living room and you're in there most often in the evening, you could have the actinics come on at 2pm, left MH on at 3pm, right MH on at 6pm, left MH off at 9pm, right MH off at midnight and then the actinics off at 2am.....that way all lights are on between 6pm and 9pm...the combinations are endless. You still go a little batty, but the battiness is minimized. :lol:

Jeff

 

[sellout007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7037352#post7037352 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jgleach
sellout007....evaporation is one of the keys to keeping your tank cool when you add as much energy as we are adding with the MH bulbs. Latent heat is the heat energy required to change a substance from one state to another. When water evaporates from your tank, the energy required to change the state of the water comes directly from the water in your tank. If high temperature is an issue, I would encourage as much evaporation as possible.

Jeff

Never thought of that. I guess its not going to matter, because I came home and the tank is at 86*. *pulls hair*. Im just going to slap a big ole noisey fan on it near the sump like I did with my old tank to make sure it stays cool. Ahhhh well.

Thanks for the posts everyone.

 

[Rod Buehler]

IME the quietest/best fans are usually the cheap clip ons for $6 at wal-mart